Chris Roberts reply to what the role of the "Community Ambassador" is in relation to TNGS

The Starcitizen community in general seems to attract an inward looking, technically astute crowd of people. Dan represents an opposite end of the spectrum in that he does not have any qualifications to represent a gaming community with as much knowledge about game development such as star citizen.

His promotional skills are good, as a motivational speaker and winner of BB, but I think this is more suited to represent a publisher and corporate event say from IGN or Gamespot.

Lets hand it to him for being honest about Big Brother, what put me off was that BB itself is generally associated with drama, manipulation and deception. This does not fit a group like SC that has built foundation on technical skill and I would guess, people who had a passion to drop loads of money into its early backing phase all on the premise that it would create a game that was not publisher/marketer/focus group chopped up content, which is the vibe I get after watching the most recent episode.

He has not proven to have earned the title of a community ambassasdor.

Whatever happened to Ben, Ben's Helper and Chelsea? Someone from the internal team at SC, or a prolific poster from within the forums, these would be people who I can associate as one of our own, rather than have an outside contract motivational speaker forced down the gullet..

No offense intended at Dan, this is directed towards CIG's decision at reducing the viewing time of TNGS teams, I was rather looking forward to seeing the judges provide the next round of feedback.

YOU are the toxicity of the forums.You who insult people for disagreeing with you.

We can argue semantics all day if you wish or "he said, she said" arguments. It won't change my original comments. You seem to be hung up on the "community ambassador" title that has been assigned to Dan Gheesling or what the definition of being a community leader is. Here is a fact for you. Chris Roberts can assign anyone he wishes to become a "community ambassador". And they do not need to be someone who must meet some special set of imaginary rules dictated by community members.

Let me throw this back at you - would you be happier if he was simply labelled as "Ambassador of Star Citizen"?

Chris Roberts can assign anyone he wishes to become a "community ambassador".

That's blatantly obvious, but that doesn't mean people have to like it.It's called feedback.Now don't go around calling people haters and insulting them for reporting bugs in the DFM, they are giving feedback. Regardless of the fact that CR has the final word, it's something called FEEDBACK.

Feedback is why the Freelancer has been changed.Feedback is why Voyager Direct prices are lower.Feedback is why we will get test credits in the DFM to test items we can't buy.Feedback is the core principle of TNGS, backers voting.

Yet every time someone gives feedback on these forums, someone who is unaffected by the issue chooses to vilify them for it.CR wants feedback, that's the entire point of the alpha.

Let me throw this back at you - would you be happier if he was simply labelled as "Ambassador of Star Citizen"?

I'm not sure where you think there are "he said she said" arguments or semantics, I'm not saying anyone said anything other than what they did in fact say, and them calling him a community ambassador is irrelevant to the point.

No. That's an unnecessary role, and there you are just getting into semantics. Whether you call him the Ambassador of Star Citizen or the Chief Mugwump, his role would still be to communicate between the community and the TNGS teams, an unnecessary role which would be better filled by someone actually affiliated with the community if we must have someone in the role.

Negative: overacting, to much hand movement, to much coffee? Kinda felt like the duracell bunny.

Edit: I didnt like 'him' to much because of comming across as hyperactive, talking to fast and moving all the time. But what makes or breaks an interview for me are the questions being asked and they were good so.. i'm in the dont care camp.

im curious, in some posts a few off you speak of how little you have and are linked with EvE and the goons there, yet you speak as you know him closely, tell me, why not let Mittens speak for himself then, or ?

I've stated before that I refuse to debate you due to your ongoing poor form, straw manning, begging the question, and other violations of the rules of mature debate. However, I will respond to this one question.

I have never said I am not linked with EVE. I have said that I am one of the <4% of FLJK Goonrathi members who are also EVE players. The vast majority (ie: >96%) are not EVE players. As far as why The Mittani doesn't speak for himself, he has. However, I'm fairly certain that he would rather continue running his growing media empire than repeat himself ad nauseum to people such as yourself, Kuari, Viperion and others. He is my friend so I defend him when I see people try to misrepresent his real life persona.

There is no other reason to target him instead of Goons as a whole. Its admirable that you'd want to defend your friend, but deflecting the issue isn't going to help that cause.

And now we get to the real point. People attack mittens for a single instance of bad behavior (which he apologised for without being asked, paid compensation without being asked and resigned from the CSM without being asked) because of their Goonfear. People get so worked up about goons that they don't even stop to think: Is it the same group of goons? Are the rules going to permit the same shenanigans? Is this something I should be concerned about or just paranoia? So they use this try and attack us as a whole. Yes, The Mittani is going to play Star Citizen. No, he is not in a leadership position.

The original purpose of the talk was to point out the reaction of the high security system ganking undertaken by goons and allies. It is often done in character. However, any implication that mittens intended any actual harm (as you so strongly implied) to come to The Wiz, is completely false. Mittens contacted The Wiz the following day and personally apologised, there were no hard feelings. He owned the situation as soon as he was sober enough to realise what he had done.

While I really want to know the answer to the Idris NPC crew question, I don't want to rush CR in the decision. I would like him to take his time and consider everything that he feels is relevant to the question then let us know.

Edit: There are many more people who can be traced back as having an genuine interest in promotion SC, for example West from The Hull Truth. His made weekly videos covering star citizen for a long time, or that guy that made the youtube video about 15 reasons to like Starcitizen, this was back when there was very little coverage about this game and these guys did it out of pure passion to promote the game to a wide audience.

It's a decision that has provoked a majority response questioning why a community ambassador is necessary or appropriate. The guys in charge of running TNGS do not know their community well enough, otherwise they would have just given us more content on development of the competition itself.

I was HIGHLY displeased the second he popped up. First of all, i'm not a huge fan of this pseudo reality internet show in the first place. If anything it shows CIG clearly has NO understanding of its core audience. Whoever said "Oh yeah, everyone will love this guy" should be fired. If it ends up he's being paid with our pledge money, i'll be seeking a refund very quickly.

I had not the courage to say what you just have said. I congratulate you for your boldness, its well deserved. I for one love WMH n specially, the informal, natural, warm, spontaneous, Wingman Hangover a 1000x more then I ever will any formal reality show like competition...don't get me wrong I like the competition just not the show format. The show as is reminds me something like an International version of America/World got talent sort of show...as far as my opinion goes it has nothing on nothing to do with SC core audience.

While I really want to know the answer to the Idris NPC crew question, I don't want to rush CR in the decision. I would like him to take his time and consider everything that he feels is relevant to the question then let us know.

I agree. Just because he is asked a tough question doesn't mean that he needs to answer it completely, or partially or at all. Maybe he would give us some insight into to thought process going into the decision. It is interesting, though, that the Idris is still the a sensitive topic. It really should be continually asked until addressed. This is how things work :)

Well, I would like if half of the questions in ten for the chairman was selected by community (either subscribers or backers). However it is likely that Chris will nopt have answers for those questions yet, so I think that other half should be selected by CIG to answer what they actually can answer. That way they can both answer the most burning questions and they can also tell us something more what we may not think that is important, because we do not really see behind the scenes stuff.

While I really want to know the answer to the Idris NPC crew question, I don't want to rush CR in the decision. I would like him to take his time and consider everything that he feels is relevant to the question then let us know.

This. There is no point in rushing things. They still do not have answer to many things and sometimes they need to wait for the stuff to be in the game to see how it will work and they will have to change mechanics to balance the game.

The only thing that really struck me about Dan was that he was much more comfortable in front of a camera than some of the CIG team. And that's not even an insult.

My only source of confusion is why we need a community ambassador in the first place, to be honest. I think CIG does an excellent job of staying connected with the community on these forums, and the same goes for the community itself. We make our concerns and opinions about the Star Citizen project known clearly, so is a community ambassador necessary?

I believe a lot of people are just afraid that their voices aren't going to be represented through Dan. A little clarification about what his job is within The Next Great Starship and the greater Star Citizen community as a whole would really put these concerns to rest.

Not hate but mostly underwhelmed - with a title like that he should have more going for him than a contrived US Centric show that few if any of the player base watched or cared about even in the US. Also his 1st interview was very forced and earnest, fake head nodding etc. I can see that maybe they needed a male face to equal Sandy's eye candy (with respect Sandy - your a baby :) ). But really I so get the 2nd string or want-a-be vibe from him.

Some of you are stuck on stupid. The guy is not the SC ambassador he's the TNGS ambassador. If you actually paid attention you would have figured it out on your own. So those of you puffing your man boobs saying "He's not my representative, " can relax.

Also it's sad that so many are quick to judge somebody who has energy and enthusiasm by calling them fake, or are judging somebody by their tv persona. I honestly think some of you bitch just so you have something to complain about.

Post script @Vual my comment isn't directed at you. It's solely aimed in the direction of those pretentious tools who are crying major foul.

Mr. Geesling has said himself a few times that he was the "Community Ambasador for The Next Great Starship". Nowhere does he say that he is the Community Ambasador for the entire game. I believe too many people heard "community ambassador" and immediately jumped aboard the hate cart without hearing the qualifying statement.

I posted a reply in the comments section of the TNGS but I'm going to repeat here.

Everyone seems to be getting worked up by the "Community Ambassador" moniker. Dan Gheesling is NOT the ambassador for the community for Star Citizen. He's the Community Ambassador for TNGS to bring his reality TV competition experience combined with his genuine fan hood for Star Citizen to help the teams with the community.

Everyone should know that Dan is an ORIGINAL BACKER from October 2012 (long before we were the sure thing we are now), a Wing Commander player (and a gamer) since he was a kid. He talked to us last year about the assistant community manager position working with Ben, It didn't work out because he didn't want to relocate from Michigan (for all of those that think he's too "Hollywood!") but instead offered to help out TNGS when we were putting plans together for it last year. In fact he introduced us to some of the behind the scenes crew (and yes, they're from the "evil" reality TV world - but that's how to do these kind of shows efficiently (and therefore economically)) I know everyone thinks something like TNGS (or even WMH) are simple to put together and you just need a cheap camera and a YouTube account but they involve a lot of pre-production and logistics - and we have an added complication due the time it takes the competitors to produce work (as opposed to a singing competition where you can hear someone sing a song in 2-3 minutes). You need people with experience in this world to mount something this logistically challenging. I am sure you would all be upset if I hired a bunch of people who had never programmed before or made a video game and tasked them with making Star Citizen!

Personally I thought his interview was really good - I've never been asked some of those questions before - they're normally pretty softball.

I'll admit we should have explained the Community Ambassador moniker better or perhaps called it something else like "Team Ambassador" - the idea is that he'll spend time with the teams and help them with building their support bases in the community and how they pitch to judges. Something that you cant argue he has experience and has been successful at in the past.

I thought Episode 1.8 of TNGS had GREAT content - really impressive updates from the various teams, we found out which two teams were "saved", saw a little more of Mustang and had a nice in depth interview with me.

So it is disappointing to see so many comments NOT about what 95% of the show was but about!

I get that a lot of people hate reality TV, and maybe that background should have been much less emphasized and more Dan's genuine excitement and passion for Star Citizen. I know its easy to be critical in comments / forum posts but this a real person and what's worse he's a backer that's been there from the beginning and is doing this to help!

Everyone should all be proud and excited that Star Citizen has backers from ALL walks of life.

I think it's disgusting you even have to write a post like this, Chris. Please know that not everyone is worked up about the "Community Ambassador" moniker. Thanks for reaching out and explaining yourself anyway. You're a real stand-up guy, which is why I pledged in the first place.

I posted a reply in the comments section of the TNGS but I'm going to repeat here.

Everyone seems to be getting worked up by the "Community Ambassador" moniker. Dan Gheesling is NOT the ambassador for the community for Star Citizen. He's the Community Ambassador for TNGS to bring his reality TV competition experience combined with his genuine fan hood for Star Citizen to help the teams with the community.

Everyone should know that Dan is an ORIGINAL BACKER from October 2012 (long before we were the sure thing we are now), a Wing Commander player (and a gamer) since he was a kid. He talked to us last year about the assistant community manager position working with Ben, It didn't work out because he didn't want to relocate from Michigan (for all of those that think he's too "Hollywood!") but instead offered to help out TNGS when we were putting plans together for it last year. In fact he introduced us to some of the behind the scenes crew (and yes, they're from the "evil" reality TV world - but that's how to do these kind of shows efficiently (and therefore economically)) I know everyone thinks something like TNGS (or even WMH) are simple to put together and you just need a cheap camera and a YouTube account but they involve a lot of pre-production and logistics - and we have an added complication due the time it takes the competitors to produce work (as opposed to a singing competition where you can hear someone sing a song in 2-3 minutes). You need people with experience in this world to mount something this logistically challenging. I am sure you would all be upset if I hired a bunch of people who had never programmed before or made a video game and tasked them with making Star Citizen!

Personally I thought his interview was really good - I've never been asked some of those questions before - they're normally pretty softball.

I'll admit we should have explained the Community Ambassador moniker better or perhaps called it something else like "Team Ambassador" - the idea is that he'll spend time with the teams and help them with building their support bases in the community and how they pitch to judges. Something that you cant argue he has experience and has been successful at in the past.

I thought Episode 1.8 of TNGS had GREAT content - really impressive updates from the various teams, we found out which two teams were "saved", saw a little more of Mustang and had a nice in depth interview with me.

So it is disappointing to see so many comments NOT about what 95% of the show was but about!

I get that a lot of people hate reality TV, and maybe that background should have been much less emphasized and more Dan's genuine excitement and passion for Star Citizen. I know its easy to be critical in comments / forum posts but this a real person and what's worse he's a backer that's been there from the beginning and is doing this to help!

Everyone should all be proud and excited that Star Citizen has backers from ALL walks of life.

I posted a reply in the comments section of the TNGS but I'm going to repeat here.

Everyone seems to be getting worked up by the "Community Ambassador" moniker. Dan Gheesling is NOT the ambassador for the community for Star Citizen. He's the Community Ambassador for TNGS to bring his reality TV competition experience combined with his genuine fan hood for Star Citizen to help the teams with the community.

Everyone should know that Dan is an ORIGINAL BACKER from October 2012 (long before we were the sure thing we are now), a Wing Commander player (and a gamer) since he was a kid. He talked to us last year about the assistant community manager position working with Ben, It didn't work out because he didn't want to relocate from Michigan (for all of those that think he's too "Hollywood!") but instead offered to help out TNGS when we were putting plans together for it last year. In fact he introduced us to some of the behind the scenes crew (and yes, they're from the "evil" reality TV world - but that's how to do these kind of shows efficiently (and therefore economically)) I know everyone thinks something like TNGS (or even WMH) are simple to put together and you just need a cheap camera and a YouTube account but they involve a lot of pre-production and logistics - and we have an added complication due the time it takes the competitors to produce work (as opposed to a singing competition where you can hear someone sing a song in 2-3 minutes). You need people with experience in this world to mount something this logistically challenging. I am sure you would all be upset if I hired a bunch of people who had never programmed before or made a video game and tasked them with making Star Citizen!

Personally I thought his interview was really good - I've never been asked some of those questions before - they're normally pretty softball.

I'll admit we should have explained the Community Ambassador moniker better or perhaps called it something else like "Team Ambassador" - the idea is that he'll spend time with the teams and help them with building their support bases in the community and how they pitch to judges. Something that you cant argue he has experience and has been successful at in the past.

I thought Episode 1.8 of TNGS had GREAT content - really impressive updates from the various teams, we found out which two teams were "saved", saw a little more of Mustang and had a nice in depth interview with me.

So it is disappointing to see so many comments NOT about what 95% of the show was but about!

I get that a lot of people hate reality TV, and maybe that background should have been much less emphasized and more Dan's genuine excitement and passion for Star Citizen. I know its easy to be critical in comments / forum posts but this a real person and what's worse he's a backer that's been there from the beginning and is doing this to help!

Everyone should all be proud and excited that Star Citizen has backers from ALL walks of life.

Pretty obvious from so many hate comments, reflecting on a TV game show this guy played, that the emotional maturity, fire from the hip and quick to judge attitudes about him come from those who could benefit most from his leadership skills.

I find that people, like all these haters, do nothing but bring down and rile up forum communities....and you should all just go away...And if not, make sure you put a big call sign on your ships so I know who to target first. Who's with me?

You are a scary person let me tell you... Your last comment is wonderfully incoherent with your entrance comment.But you want to know what else comes across as funny ? For one people thinking that having disagreeing opinions, dissonance, instead of straight boring consensus is something which is bad that needs purging. This kind of reaction, very American by the way, continually brings me memory that we westerners keep forever on depending on this Christian Occidental daydreaming with a Paradise world, with a promise land, where we all go hand in hand in a field of roses. Mediocrity at its best... People are different not all alike, n different people sometimes don't bound, don't link. There is nothing hateful in saying I don't like this kind of genotype, this kind of personality. Its honest, its open, it gives people opportunity to fight back to make their case. In contrast, in order to win a big brother so it seams, one needs to do the opposite so to trick your opponents into liking you while you do your winning move. Contradictions are wonderful !

LOL.....and BTW, I am an atheist... So no imagery of any field of roses here. I just know unwarranted disdain and hatred when I see it. And every one of these hate comments are simply unwarranted and immature; especially when they come before the guy is even given a chance to prove himself. Not wonderful..........Childish.